Author/s: Edward Helmore

Issue: Feb, 2000

Interview Magazine

Like the brief pause between childhood and adolescence, there's a moment in an actor's career between local acclaim and wider stardom that is akin to a state of grace. Dublin-born Colin Farrell is in that special place--he's a star in his homeland after establishing himself playing a handsome pony boy in the rural BBC drama series Ballykissangel and will soon be seen playing the youngest member of Kevin Spacey's gang of hoodlums in Ordinary Decent Criminal, a remake of The General (1998), John Boorman's film about the notorious Dublin gangster Martin Cahill. Interview took Farrell for a full Irish breakfast to learn more about the actor who is slated to become that country's next big movie star.

EDWARD HELMORE: Did you like The General?

COLIN FARRELL: I did! A lot of people in Dublin had a problem with it because it was about our first big criminal mind and a horrible, horrible man, and it came across that he was a modem-day Robin Hood. You left The General thinking, "I'd like to have a pint with the man," whereas you wouldn't want to have a pint with him at all. Ordinary Decent Criminal is a more tongue-in-cheek version of the story.

EH: Sounds different from all those Irish movies about shamrocks, thatch cottages, and diddlyeye farmers in Connemara.

CF: That's the American concept of Ireland--they love the idea of Ireland because it's so small and it's green and people drink so much--but that's the exception and not the rule. Walk down O'Connell Street [in Dublin] on a Friday night and you'll get stabbed within ten minutes. When I first came over here I'd say I was Irish and they'd go, "Ah, yeah, of course you fuckin' are. We're all Irish over here." But then so many people said it that I began thinking, Jesus, those Paddys must have done some amount of shagging when they came over.

EH: In Ballykissangel you rode into town on a pony, made your name as an actor and heartthrob, and then left after two years. How did you bow out?

CF: I wasn't written out of the show, run over by a tractor or something. The producer warned me I'd be back in the pool of unemployed actors, but I told him that if I started thinking about security, mortgages, Visa cards and all that kind of shite, I'd be bollocksed. I'm only twenty-three and I refuse to do that at this stage. I just wanted to go off and have a bit of an adventure.

EH: Which you did on the stage in London [in In a Little World of Our Own], and now you're here. Was it necessary to leave Ireland to push forward?

CF: There's a lot going on there, but there's so many actors that there's never enough work to go round. I was lucky enough to get an agent in Los Angeles. So I said I'll go over for a few weeks and see what the story is.

EH: And you came back with a part in the next Joel Schumacher film, Tigerland. What's the story with that?

CF: It's about a bunch of lads in boot camp before they go to Vietnam and how they deal with it: their thoughts on the war they're going to fight and the dawning understanding of what they are getting themselves into when they finally realize that they're not going to be getting laid much anymore.

EH: I heard you've just been in Austin to pick up a Texas accent for the part. What did you find?

CF: I was confused at first. It was very cosmopolitan where I was, and I was looking for someone with a Texan drawl but couldn't find anyone. Eventually I met a taxi driver who told me about the Golden Spoke, which you can guess is a place with sawdust all over the floor and country and western bands, so I just hung out there.

EH: There's a natural connection between Ireland and Texas. Lots of cattle, both sweet on country music...

CF: As it happens I once toured Ireland with this dance troupe teaching line dancing. It was a big thing there for about a year. We had to wear a Stetson, cowboy boots, and choker--it made me look like a Village People version of a cowboy. I did it for about eight months and earned loads of money, but one day I looked at myself in the mirror and just wasn't comfortable, so I packed it in.

EH: Do you get bashful when you're called the Irish Brad Pitt?

CF: I don't give a fiddler's fuck. I don't get a horn and I don't get annoyed. Comparisons are made all the time anyway; Matthew McConaughey was the new Paul Newman for at least six months and I haven't heard that for at least two years.

EH: Do you feel that you're being groomed?

CF: Absolutely. It's hilarious and, in a sense, ridiculous. The direction is necessarily defined but here I am with people dressing me up in pink and baby blue and love hats and badges saying "Be My Valentine" for the photo shoot--

EH: Which reminds me, who is your Valentine?

CF: Who would I want my Valentine to be?

EH: Anybody you want.

CF: Marlon Brando. Me and Marlon over a candlelit dinner and a nice bottle of wine.